Bhakti Shringarpure in The Guardian:
Fanon’s posthumously published The Wretched of the Earth has often been viewed as a call to violent action against the coloniser, as a radical militant anthem for all oppressed peoples, and as a deeply controversial ideology of resistance.
Terminably ill with cancer and fully aware that this was to be his legacy, it seemed that this book was his attempt to make a larger contribution towards a theory about colonialism in the African continent. It was in the anxious haste of a prodigal 10 weeks in which Fanon composed and dictated The Wretched of the Earth to his wife, Josie.
Though Fanon was a spokesperson for Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN), an ardent radical writer for the revolutionary Algerian newspaper El Moujahid, a psychiatrist for fighters and tortured combatants and a staunch critic of the French left, his posthumous fame became focused on his one singular observation about violence during decolonisation.
He wrote that decolonisation “fundamentally alters” the colonised man’s sense of self: “It infuses a new rhythm, specific to a new generation of men, with a new language and new humanity. Decolonisation is truly the creation of new men.”
This observation about the new men formed through the use of violence has been consistently viewed as a detrimental and dangerous idea. The Wretched of the Earth was banned in France as soon as it came out and copies were seized from bookstores. Prominent French left-leaning intellectuals of the time, such as Jean Daniel, author of La Blessure, and Jean-Marie Domenach, editor of Espirit, were disgusted by Fanon’s theories on violence and felt that they reeked of revenge.
But according to Fanon, colonial violence begins with the coloniser, who “does not alleviate oppression or mask domination. He displays and demonstrates them with the clear conscience of the law enforcer, and brings violence into the homes and minds of the colonised subject.” During decolonisation, it is this unchecked, destructive and tireless violence that is “appropriated” by the colonised.
More here.